According to El País, during 2017, 532,482 people from abroad established their residence in Spain. The number was not so high since before the crisis, when in 2008, 599,074 immigrants arrived. The migratory balance (the difference between entries by migration and departures for the same reason) in 2017 is positive in 164,604 people: compared to the arrival of 532,482 immigrants, 367,878 people left Spain for a foreign destination.

The population residing in Spain grew in 2017 for the second consecutive year and reached 46,659,302 inhabitants on January 1, 2018. The increase of 132,263 people is mainly due to the growth of the population coming from abroad, according to the National Institute Statistics Office (INE). While the number of Spaniards was reduced by 20,337 people, mainly due to the negative vegetative balance (the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths), the foreign population in Spain increased by 152,600 people. "The statistics of migration poses a contrast with population statistics," maintains the deputy assistant director of the INE, Jorge Vega. "A few days ago we knew a negative vegetative balance record in Spain, with a difference between births and deaths of -31,245 in 2017. Now, these figures complete the population data and we see that there is a positive balance of more than 164,000 people. The country does not lose inhabitants, it wins, if we stick to the data of recent years, it is a balance that is quite high," he explains.

The Statistics of Migrations of the INE reveals that immigration increased in Spain by 28.4% and emigration by 12.4% with respect to the previous year. If we look at the migratory balance exclusively for foreigners, the data show that it increased by 51.9% to reach 174,231 people. This balance is positive for the third consecutive year. Regarding the foreigners who arrived in Spain, the main nationalities were the Moroccan (with 39,847 arrivals in Spain during 2017), the Colombian (34,210) and the Venezuelan (31,468). Among the 20 nationalities with the highest migratory flow, Venezuela and Colombia had the highest positive migratory balances (more immigrants than emigrants). At the opposite extreme, Romania and the United Kingdom have the most negative balances. Immigration flows increased in the 15 main countries of origin of foreigners, especially people of Peruvian nationality (75.2% more than in 2016), Venezuelan (70% more) and Honduran (67.4%) plus). Among foreigners who emigrated from Spain in 2017, the predominant nationalities were Romanian (47,396 emigrations), British (27,013) and Moroccan (22,498). These are, in addition, the majority nationalities among the resident foreign population.

The report by El País indicates that in 2017, 78,058 people with Spanish nationality from abroad settled in Spain - more than half of them (45,144) were born outside the country. In the opposite direction, 87,685 people with Spanish nationality emigrated abroad, continuing a downward trend since 2015, when 94,645 people left. Of these, 54,923 (62.6%) were born in Spain. The main receiving countries of Spanish emigrants were the United Kingdom (21.8% of the total), France (11.8%), the United States (9%), Germany (7.8%) and Ecuador.